Cachuma Lake Recreation Area

Huge campground, large sections closed during our stay. All sites very dry and dusty, but very few other campers staying midweek. Some sections of road into campground are ridiculously potholed. Collected a bag of garbage from the 10 sites around us first morning. Didn’t hear it the first night, but second afternoon (Tuesday) discovered there is a shooting range just above the campground. If you are on the north side of the campground you are sure to hear it. It has lights and is open til 8PM

Thought it would be a good spot between Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley. Served it’s purpose but will find another resting place in the future.

This state park is secluded but close to Solvang, California. It is a huge park with a beautiful lake as of 2023 because of all the winter rain and snow. It's a busy park in summer, so reservations are tough to get on the weekend. The park has a large hiking trail that's kind of hard to find. Many come here for boating. The park has a restaurant, Hooked, onsite, that is great after a travel day. Many sites of full hookups. Power was stable. Verizon, AT&T, and Starlink had strong signals for streaming. The sites are pretty level, but the concrete on several of them is broken into pieces. I would definitely return to this park!

Came after a series of storms which closed many campgrounds, but this was open! There are over 500 sites but off season mid week there were less then 50 rigs, and most of those were in full hook up. If you can do partial or better yet, no hookups the site options are much better. We had a whole loop on the lake to ourselves. Staff was very helpful but wood was expensive. Not many full bathrooms in the campground but lots of clean pit toilets.

Great amount of space. Gopher holes are horrid and concrete pads are busted up and unlevel - rolled ankle was a disaster waiting to happen. The fine dirt will coat everything however, that’s camping. Beautiful walks with gorgeous fall colors on a backdrop of a huge green mountain. Hosts are kind and friendly. Lake is wildly low! Get Hook’d restaurant has delicious food in case you’re needing a break from cooking. Laundry facility is small yet nice. Had trouble connecting to the terminal to pay (uses card only) so I called and had rapid response that fixed the problem and laundry was done. Close to Solvang and Buellton, which make for nice visits or supply runs. Pretty quiet right at 10pm.

Spent two nights after wine tasting in Los Olivos. Got a spot with full hook ups but in hindsight, we should have gotten partial. These spots are further back from the entrance and closer to the water and more quiet. Our spot was near the entrance and we were pretty tight. Neighbors were quiet and lots of kids on bikes. The store on the property was decently stocked and offered lots of souvenirs and tee shirts. The trails were easy to trek but the water level was sad.

First of all, the pictures on the website do not show the slope, uneven ground nor all the dozens of ground squirrel holes that might be there. At first we were in site 144 which is just a space in a giant dust patch—we called it The Dust Bowl. That entire area from sites 133-157 are in dust up to several inches deep.

Fortunately the campground had lots of empty spaces so we moved to site 175 which was SO MUCH better! Same price but it had an asphalt pad (cracked and in rough condition but level and no squirrel holes). We even had a little view of the lake.

There was a big wind storm during our stay and I felt so bad for all those people on dust sites. In general I would not camp here except on a asphalt or concrete pad.

Bathrooms we’re not very clean but good enough.

If you approach the campground from the south (Santa Barbara), just be aware that most of that stretch is a windy climb up into the hills, so it’s perhaps not the best route if your RV or tow vehicle struggles with inclines.

The park has several camping areas. We stayed in the first section, which is the first left turn after the check-in kiosk. This section has wide paved roads with concrete back-in sites with full hook-ups. Our pad was cracked and a bit warped in some places, but we had no problem leveling (and the patio area of the concrete with the picnic table was in good shape). Some sites had shade-producing trees; others did not. The sites in this section are fairly close together.

There is another large section of back-in sites on the opposite side of the main road with gravel pads: four of those sites have full-hookups, while the rest of them just have water and electric. The rest of the camping areas are labeled as tent sites with no hookups, but I did see a number of RVs parked in some of those sites, which do have the advantage of being more spread out. Each camping section/loop has at least one dumpster and one bathhouse with bathrooms and showers. I did check out the shower stalls before we left: looks like the ones in our bathhouse were coin-operated. Our section also had a recycling dumpster. There are also a number of cabins available, as well as some large yurts with patio decks overlooking the lake.

There are a ton of amenities at this campground. There is a large camp store with convenience store items and souvenirs that doubles as a gas station (no diesel, though) and provides propane refills. Just down the road from the store is a parking area with three or four dump stations. There is a pair of fenced-in dog areas next to the laundry facilities and two swimming pools (which were closed during our visit). There are two playground areas, one public cornhole setup, an outdoor theatre that seats at least 100 (probably for showing movies), and a large disc golf course that winds through the campground. There is also a clubhouse and a small nature center next to the full hook-up section of sites, and a restaurant with outdoor seating next to the main boat launch.

Except for the occasional road noise from route 145, the campground feels remote. Early mornings are quiet except for the occasional gobbles of the wild turkeys that roam the campground during the day. There is an abundance of moles and pocket squirrels, so much so that there are holes in the ground everywhere and enclosed rodent poison traps located around the park. You may also see an occasional snake. There are a few short hiking trails around the edges of the campground, and access to one long trail (the Sweetwater Trail) that exits the campground and leads to the nearby dam. There are street lights in the full hook-up section, but they are capped to only shine downward, so on a clear moonless night you can look up and see a lot of stars.

In terms of cell service, the best speed I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna during our stay was about 50Mbps down and 20Mbps up, so I had no trouble working or streaming video. The best speed I got with my AT&T phone showed 9.5Mbps down and 5.5 up.

We would definitely stay here again.

Big sites, campground is clean and quiet. The lake is low but lovely. Plenty of wildlife (deer, quail, turkeys) and it’s a short drive to Solvang, Santa Ynez, and Santa Barbara. I had full hookups, no complaints. My site was over by the cabins, it was really quite nice- the gate guys are also very helpful (changed my reservation from 1 to 2 nights)- and accommodating.